


blood trail

by crickets



Category: Lost
Genre: Incest, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-16
Updated: 2007-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-02 06:00:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crickets/pseuds/crickets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><a href="http://crickets.livejournal.com/91808.html">Original Post</a>.</p>
    </blockquote>





	blood trail

**Author's Note:**

> [Original Post](http://crickets.livejournal.com/91808.html).

He bleeds.

Knife cut too deep before the gun went off, and he got too damn close anyway - thought maybe somewhere behind the madness that John was still a reasonable man. Now he's just a corpse, and Jack is just a murderer.

He grips his side, stumbles toward the edge of camp, and calls for Sawyer, but it is Claire who finds him first. She drags him, god knows how, and her hands are covered in his blood, _their blood_. It's in her hair and in her veins, and it reeks of truth.

His knees buckle and hit the sand, and he retches, dry and hard, and the last thing he remembers is his name on her lips.

**+**

She dreams.

Jack's hands on her, like oil on canvas, like it's always been that way. When she wakes, it's Sawyer beside her, and she brushes his hair back from his face, kisses his eyes. "We should go tonight," she whispers when he stirs. It's no longer safe to stay in one place for too long.

"But Jack?" he says, the unanswered question, thick and groggy with sleep.

"We'll have to carry him," she says simply, because there is no other way. "We'll move when night falls."

He kisses her, and the taste is filled with all that they have lost. And when they come, they come together _and_ apart, and it has always been this way.

**+**

He walks.

And what has he done his entire life _but_ carry on? Some have said he was simply running away, pushing in the wrong direction, but Sawyer knows better. He's done only what's needed gettin' done, and this is no different. It's just the same as everything else, even with Jack's weight under his hands, and Claire's under his heart.

"I can't," she says, leans against the bark, presses her back to it, drenched with thick jungle sweat.

"You can," he says. And this is the part, he realizes, that's _not_ the same - carrying others along _with_ him.

**+**

He heals.

Jack's fingers trace the scar along his chest, jagged and full of hate, just like the man who gave it to him. _Nearly missed,_ he thinks, and wonders if it's for the best.

Claire doesn't tend to him, but he knows she did before. Through bouts of sleep and feverish dreams, he remembers her soft touch, even though she thinks he doesn't.

He watches them, they way they stand much closer than they used to, and knows what they won't say.

"The others?" he asks one night, the fractured groups of survivors still in his thoughts, after everything.

"Been weeks," Sawyer says, his hand brushing Jack's, and they both know what that means.

**+**

She sees.

But Claire, as always, pretends not to see - the same way she pretended not to know that Charlie was going to die, the way she pretended not to be relieved. Their voices are shielded from her ears, the sounds of their fucking at night when they think she's asleep, calling each other's names.

"When does this get easy?" she asks Sawyer when they're alone.

"Which part, Mamacita?"

"All of it," she says, but knows there is no answer.

**+**

It rains.

Sawyer sits by Jack and wet firewood, the dark smoke rising futilely into the night sky, much like their hopes of ever leaving this place.

"Let me ask you something," Jack says, tossing a smooth rock into the dying coals.

"Answer's no," says Sawyer, and Jack looks at him, the question already written in the air.

_Do you love each other?_

"Then why?"

"You," Sawyer says. "It's you, Jack, for the both of us. Guess if you can't have what you want..." his voice trails off, letting Jack fill in the blanks, and then he stands, turns toward the makeshift shelter and looks back. "You coming?"

_-fin_


End file.
